Infinite bucks per GB? SMS messages don't use bandwidth or data. They get carried in what is otherwise wasted padding in heartbeat packets. That's why they have a limited character length.
Yes, but that doesn't stop AT&T from charging me 20 cents per message. Considering each message only has 120 characters, it would cost me ridiculous amounts of money to send a GB-worth of data via SMS.
Android has zero VPN capabilities... it seems like that could easily be fixed, if it were really that important.
Really? My gingerbread phone has a VPN section in the network settings page. I can connect to my work VPN easily. Is this not a default thing built into all Android phones?
I really tried to like World of Tanks, but I got really frustrated by one aspect of it. (And I admit, this probably has more to do with me not knowing what I'm doing than it being bad)
First, remember that I'm in an early level tank (level 1 or 2). I'd go find a good position on the map, behind a building, waiting for a good shot. An enemy tank would come around the corner, not immediately seeing me. I'd shoot it (at point blank range). And do no damage. And again, no damage. And again, no damage. He'd eventually notice me, turn, and shoot me a few times killing me.
I've been told that's because their tank is too high level for me to kill? Or that if I had a better tank, it wouldn't be a problem? I dunno, that really turned me off of the game. (and again, it's probably somehow that I didn't know what I was doing. But it just took the fun out of it for me)
Better yet, agree to the sale. Then once they get you one the phone with the person who takes your credit card info, hang up. This will result in a cost to the call center and the agent who called you will get reprimanded for the failed conversion.
I tried this. Unfortunately, the fact that I actually wanted to talk to somebody got me bumped to some sort of "possible target" list, where I get called probably 5 times as frequently now. Before starting your strategy, I got called maybe once every few weeks. It bumped up to once or twice a day after I actually talked to somebody. *sigh*
No matter what ATT says, they almost never provide the unlock codes for phones once the contract has expired. Go ahead, and try, see what happens.
Ok, I'll bite. I just did this the past week. I have 2 AT&T smartphones. One is under contract, one isn't. I called asking them to unlock both of them, and they gave me unlock codes without hesitation. So no, in my anecdotal experience, this isn't the case. In my experience, AT&T is happy to unlock your phone if you just ask politely, EVEN IF IT IS STILL UNDER CONTRACT.
That said, older-than-dirt tournament play styles can easily combat any investment advantage. Put simply, you have one player build two decks, and the other player choose which deck to play.
While that's true, part (maybe even most) of the "game" of Magic is deck construction. Not just the investment of buying the cards, but actually choosing what combinations of cards to build a deck with. Playing with a deck that you didn't build completely takes any fun out of the game.
As in Magic the Gathering? The card game with 12,000+ individual cards? In my honest opinion, it's the greatest game ever made.
In my opinion, any game where a higher budget gives players more strategic options, is immediately disqualified from being the "greatest game ever made." I might be able to play the game with a $10 investment in a starter pack, but I will lose 100% of the time against players with a bigger budget, no matter what my skill level is.
That's great in terms of profit for the game producer, but pretty weak in terms of actual gameplay.
(That's not to say I don't think Magic is a decent game. It is. But the collectible nature weakens the game in terms of pure gameplay.)
Do people really print? I haven't owned a printer in 10 years, and I used to write firmware for them.
Oh man, I wish I still didn't print as much I do.
Things I've printed in the last couple of weeks: - notes for an non-work organization meeting (which included old people that don't all have laptops) - coloring sheets for my kids (sure, coloring books are cheaper. But the instant gratification of picking a picture then printing it is really fun for my 4 year-olds) - printable iron-on transfers for cheesy christmas t-shirts - a visa application for traveling, that could only be submitted on paper, and had to be typed - restaurant coupons (some of the restaurants still want a physical piece of paper) - instructions/bits for a new years party game
So yeah, unfortunately, I still print. Which always makes me angry, because all printers priced for home use suck.
. When I'm using Linux, I'm using Thunderbird, but I can't access my school's email server because Thunderbird can't do Exchange.
I've been using Davmail to solve this issue -- basically a background process that connects to exchange, and translates to common protocols such as calDav, Imap, ldap, etc (so that you can then use Thunderbird/etc). It's not perfect, but it's pretty close.
these days, most people already have a barcode reader in their pocket
Except many of those are pretty crappy for standard 2d barcodes. My phone (and others I've played with) do great for QR codes and a few other "newer" types of barcodes, but are painfully slow and difficult to get to scan older barcodes.
Our library has a phone-based checkout system, where I can use their app on my phone to scan book barcodes for "quick" checkout. But it turns out that the minute of fiddling with the distance/lighting/angle to scan the barcode just isn't worth it. I've had the same trouble with an inventory-tracking app I've been working on for the workplace. Phone cameras are just pretty poor at scanning/parsing most 2d barcode stickers.
I don't know how they actually get any "business" -- the last 3 times they've called me, I've tried playing along to see how the scam works. Somewhere along the line, as I'm telling them what my current interest rate is, they always hang up on me. It blows my mind.
One time, though, I had fun -- my other routine is to try to explain to the poor schmuck on the line (who is probably an underpaid normal person who can't find a better job) that they are working for scammers and probably should find a different job. One lady from "Card Services" started yelling at me about how they weren't scammers, they were a organization that wants to help people and that they never break the law, and that my phone number must not actually be on the do-not-call list if they called me, because they follow the rules. It was hilarious, she carried on for 5 or 10 minutes shouting at me, and she sounded like she actually believed it.
Well, it'll be interesting to see if Comcast does this in my area. I'm not going to buy/rent a cable box. If they encrypt my channels, and thus make it so I can't watch their cable with my setup, then I'm dropping my service (both the $7 basic cable, and the $55 internet). Over the air and DSL will be good enough.
I guess I should write them a letter. As if anyone would read it or care.
Back in the day, like that Atari 2600, you had 2 screws you hooked the video game console thru, and god forbid you had 2 or 3 or so of those type of consoles. And we were happy for it.
Meh, back in those days (And with the coax connectors as well), most of the video game consoles attached to the tv with switches that you could chain together. So you could easily chain 2 or 3 consoles together with no problems. In the 2600 days, there was a manual switch you had to move to select the atari vs the upstream input. By the NES days, the switching happened automatically.
But either way, it was no problem to chain multiple consoles/home computers together. Once we moved to RCA and other inputs is when it started getting painful, because you could no longer chain together inputs like that.
If only the Valley could cut its property prices by like 80%, then they might survive the next decade and still be on top:P. I'm sorry, but the cost of living there is just outrageous compared to more-reasonable places that are also full of hackers and startups.
Name one.
Champaign-Urbana.
Cost of living is pretty cheap, there are lots of high-tech jobs (most people I know say the companies they work for are currently trying to hire programmers!), it's easy to get around, and being a town with a large university (including one of the highest populations of foreign students), there are a lot of interesting thing to do, ranging from classical performances (plays, ballets, orchestras), bar and band nightlife, family activities, to geek events (a hip "maker-space", engineering competitions and meetings, etc). There are lots of smart people around as well, including a lot of geeks from all fields. (I recently had a random conversation about ESR's Cathedral and Bazaar with a stranger at the library!)
The only problem is the weather, which sucks. It's hot and miserable in the summer, and cold and miserable in the winter. Spring and fall are great for the whole 2 weeks that they last.
I made Anguna, a zelda-ish adventure game for DS and GBA.
Oh wow, I haven't looked at that website in awhile. It's lying about the iPhone port -- I gave up on that when apple changed their developer terms one-too-many times during development.
While I agree with other posters that "homebrew" carries on but just looks different on different platforms, it is disappointing to see homebrew communities for older platforms fade out of existence. I was quite involved with the GBA/DS homebrew scene, but that has mostly disappeared by now. It's a ghost town over at gbaDev these days.
There will always (hopefully!) be somewhere for hobbiest and independent game developers to show off, but homebrew console gaming as it has been defined during the last 10 years is certainly declining.
I do miss it though -- there was a certain excitement about getting something running on your GBA that isn't quite there when I write code for modern portable devices. (Although I also wonder if part of that is nostalgia).
This guys is throwing up one of those "hybrid-laptops". He's found his corner case and he's going to troll it for everything it's worth.
Really? So it's considered a "troll" for someone to explain clearly and calmly why his laptop didn't run as well under linux? He even talked about how it's improving over time and he plans to try again.
I've had numerous machines that have problems with linux in one area or another, as well as numerous machines that work fine with it. Does that mean I'm a troll looking for corner-cases? Attitudes like yours, immediately dismissing and mocking anyone who has hardware that isn't perfectly supported, is one of the reasons that linux doesn't get adopted as quickly.
I'm amazed that this got modded to +5 informative.
Does the Android version use HTML5 as well? Because it is beyond horrible. I can't figure out why the app would actually be SLOWER and harder to deal with than viewing their site on a browser, but somehow they have managed it.
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Infinite bucks per GB? SMS messages don't use bandwidth or data. They get carried in what is otherwise wasted padding in heartbeat packets. That's why they have a limited character length.
Yes, but that doesn't stop AT&T from charging me 20 cents per message. Considering each message only has 120 characters, it would cost me ridiculous amounts of money to send a GB-worth of data via SMS.
Bah, commenting to reverse an accidental down mod. Thanks for sharing your experience.
"As someone who's lived in China. they have ZERO respect for IP laws."
Since this entire case is about China respecting IP laws, your assertion is PROVEN wrong.
No, there's a difference between using IP laws when it's to your advantage, and actually "respecting" them.
Android has zero VPN capabilities... it seems like that could easily be fixed, if it were really that important.
Really? My gingerbread phone has a VPN section in the network settings page. I can connect to my work VPN easily. Is this not a default thing built into all Android phones?
I really tried to like World of Tanks, but I got really frustrated by one aspect of it. (And I admit, this probably has more to do with me not knowing what I'm doing than it being bad)
First, remember that I'm in an early level tank (level 1 or 2). I'd go find a good position on the map, behind a building, waiting for a good shot. An enemy tank would come around the corner, not immediately seeing me. I'd shoot it (at point blank range). And do no damage. And again, no damage. And again, no damage. He'd eventually notice me, turn, and shoot me a few times killing me.
I've been told that's because their tank is too high level for me to kill? Or that if I had a better tank, it wouldn't be a problem? I dunno, that really turned me off of the game. (and again, it's probably somehow that I didn't know what I was doing. But it just took the fun out of it for me)
They do investigate consumer complaints, which is why one of the major companies running the "Rachel from Cardholder Services" scam got caught.
What I don't understand is how, after she was supposedly caught (twice!), I still keep getting calls from that scam.
Better yet, agree to the sale.
Then once they get you one the phone with the person who takes your credit card info, hang up. This will result in a cost to the call center and the agent who called you will get reprimanded for the failed conversion.
I tried this. Unfortunately, the fact that I actually wanted to talk to somebody got me bumped to some sort of "possible target" list, where I get called probably 5 times as frequently now. Before starting your strategy, I got called maybe once every few weeks. It bumped up to once or twice a day after I actually talked to somebody. *sigh*
No matter what ATT says, they almost never provide the unlock codes for phones once the contract has expired. Go ahead, and try, see what happens.
Ok, I'll bite. I just did this the past week. I have 2 AT&T smartphones. One is under contract, one isn't. I called asking them to unlock both of them, and they gave me unlock codes without hesitation. So no, in my anecdotal experience, this isn't the case. In my experience, AT&T is happy to unlock your phone if you just ask politely, EVEN IF IT IS STILL UNDER CONTRACT.
That said, older-than-dirt tournament play styles can easily combat any investment advantage. Put simply, you have one player build two decks, and the other player choose which deck to play.
While that's true, part (maybe even most) of the "game" of Magic is deck construction. Not just the investment of buying the cards, but actually choosing what combinations of cards to build a deck with. Playing with a deck that you didn't build completely takes any fun out of the game.
As in Magic the Gathering? The card game with 12,000+ individual cards? In my honest opinion, it's the greatest game ever made.
In my opinion, any game where a higher budget gives players more strategic options, is immediately disqualified from being the "greatest game ever made." I might be able to play the game with a $10 investment in a starter pack, but I will lose 100% of the time against players with a bigger budget, no matter what my skill level is.
That's great in terms of profit for the game producer, but pretty weak in terms of actual gameplay.
(That's not to say I don't think Magic is a decent game. It is. But the collectible nature weakens the game in terms of pure gameplay.)
Do people really print? I haven't owned a printer in 10 years, and I used to write firmware for them.
Oh man, I wish I still didn't print as much I do.
Things I've printed in the last couple of weeks:
- notes for an non-work organization meeting (which included old people that don't all have laptops)
- coloring sheets for my kids (sure, coloring books are cheaper. But the instant gratification of picking a picture then printing it is really fun for my 4 year-olds)
- printable iron-on transfers for cheesy christmas t-shirts
- a visa application for traveling, that could only be submitted on paper, and had to be typed
- restaurant coupons (some of the restaurants still want a physical piece of paper)
- instructions/bits for a new years party game
So yeah, unfortunately, I still print. Which always makes me angry, because all printers priced for home use suck.
(and Hi, BTW)
. When I'm using Linux, I'm using Thunderbird, but I can't access my school's email server because Thunderbird can't do Exchange.
I've been using Davmail to solve this issue -- basically a background process that connects to exchange, and translates to common protocols such as calDav, Imap, ldap, etc (so that you can then use Thunderbird/etc). It's not perfect, but it's pretty close.
But they invited him to a party! Everyone loves a party.
Don't go! The cake is a lie!
these days, most people already have a barcode reader in their pocket
Except many of those are pretty crappy for standard 2d barcodes. My phone (and others I've played with) do great for QR codes and a few other "newer" types of barcodes, but are painfully slow and difficult to get to scan older barcodes.
Our library has a phone-based checkout system, where I can use their app on my phone to scan book barcodes for "quick" checkout. But it turns out that the minute of fiddling with the distance/lighting/angle to scan the barcode just isn't worth it. I've had the same trouble with an inventory-tracking app I've been working on for the workplace. Phone cameras are just pretty poor at scanning/parsing most 2d barcode stickers.
I don't know how they actually get any "business" -- the last 3 times they've called me, I've tried playing along to see how the scam works. Somewhere along the line, as I'm telling them what my current interest rate is, they always hang up on me. It blows my mind.
One time, though, I had fun -- my other routine is to try to explain to the poor schmuck on the line (who is probably an underpaid normal person who can't find a better job) that they are working for scammers and probably should find a different job. One lady from "Card Services" started yelling at me about how they weren't scammers, they were a organization that wants to help people and that they never break the law, and that my phone number must not actually be on the do-not-call list if they called me, because they follow the rules. It was hilarious, she carried on for 5 or 10 minutes shouting at me, and she sounded like she actually believed it.
Well, it'll be interesting to see if Comcast does this in my area. I'm not going to buy/rent a cable box. If they encrypt my channels, and thus make it so I can't watch their cable with my setup, then I'm dropping my service (both the $7 basic cable, and the $55 internet). Over the air and DSL will be good enough.
I guess I should write them a letter. As if anyone would read it or care.
I've never had to register anything with Apple.
You must not be interested in writing code, then.
Back in the day, like that Atari 2600, you had 2 screws you hooked the video game console thru, and god forbid you had 2 or 3 or so of those type of consoles. And we were happy for it.
Meh, back in those days (And with the coax connectors as well), most of the video game consoles attached to the tv with switches that you could chain together. So you could easily chain 2 or 3 consoles together with no problems. In the 2600 days, there was a manual switch you had to move to select the atari vs the upstream input. By the NES days, the switching happened automatically.
But either way, it was no problem to chain multiple consoles/home computers together. Once we moved to RCA and other inputs is when it started getting painful, because you could no longer chain together inputs like that.
If only the Valley could cut its property prices by like 80%, then they might survive the next decade and still be on top :P. I'm sorry, but the cost of living there is just outrageous compared to more-reasonable places that are also full of hackers and startups.
Name one.
Champaign-Urbana.
Cost of living is pretty cheap, there are lots of high-tech jobs (most people I know say the companies they work for are currently trying to hire programmers!), it's easy to get around, and being a town with a large university (including one of the highest populations of foreign students), there are a lot of interesting thing to do, ranging from classical performances (plays, ballets, orchestras), bar and band nightlife, family activities, to geek events (a hip "maker-space", engineering competitions and meetings, etc). There are lots of smart people around as well, including a lot of geeks from all fields. (I recently had a random conversation about ESR's Cathedral and Bazaar with a stranger at the library!)
The only problem is the weather, which sucks. It's hot and miserable in the summer, and cold and miserable in the winter. Spring and fall are great for the whole 2 weeks that they last.
I made Anguna, a zelda-ish adventure game for DS and GBA.
Oh wow, I haven't looked at that website in awhile. It's lying about the iPhone port -- I gave up on that when apple changed their developer terms one-too-many times during development.
While I agree with other posters that "homebrew" carries on but just looks different on different platforms, it is disappointing to see homebrew communities for older platforms fade out of existence. I was quite involved with the GBA/DS homebrew scene, but that has mostly disappeared by now. It's a ghost town over at gbaDev these days.
There will always (hopefully!) be somewhere for hobbiest and independent game developers to show off, but homebrew console gaming as it has been defined during the last 10 years is certainly declining.
I do miss it though -- there was a certain excitement about getting something running on your GBA that isn't quite there when I write code for modern portable devices. (Although I also wonder if part of that is nostalgia).
This guys is throwing up one of those "hybrid-laptops". He's found his corner case and he's going to troll it for everything it's worth.
Really? So it's considered a "troll" for someone to explain clearly and calmly why his laptop didn't run as well under linux? He even talked about how it's improving over time and he plans to try again.
I've had numerous machines that have problems with linux in one area or another, as well as numerous machines that work fine with it. Does that mean I'm a troll looking for corner-cases? Attitudes like yours, immediately dismissing and mocking anyone who has hardware that isn't perfectly supported, is one of the reasons that linux doesn't get adopted as quickly.
I'm amazed that this got modded to +5 informative.
If only I had mod points. Sounds suspiciously like my own life.
Cool idea. What do you do when there's a bug but you don't know where in the code that it's caused?
Does the Android version use HTML5 as well? Because it is beyond horrible. I can't figure out why the app would actually be SLOWER and harder to deal with than viewing their site on a browser, but somehow they have managed it.